What are Content Buckets

Content Buckets: A definition

Content buckets, often known as content categories, are topics that discuss various aspects of one’s business. While each content bucket is meant to be specific to a certain topic, they should all connect to an overarching brand message. Each individual content bucket should be unique enough to target a specific audience but should tie back to a central theme in relation to your business. Content buckets directly affect every aspect of your marketing strategy, and are particularly common when it comes to social media, videos, and blogs.

Why They’re Important

Content buckets are an incredibly effective way to engage all different segments of your wider brand audience. Although your wider audience most likely has shared attributes, there are always going to be demographic differences that influence what content different people are able to connect to. This is where content buckets come in: each individual content bucket allows you to interact and engage with a small segment of your larger audience. This leads to a cohesive marketing strategy that enables your brand to effectively communicate and engage with a substantially wider audience than if your content strategy was single focused.

Attract New Audiences

Content buckets are also a very good way to attract new customers. If you are looking to attract a specific audience that your brand does not already reach, you can add a new content bucket to your strategy. Build content that speaks to this new audience and fits into the content bucket. You can now target this specific audience with new advertising campaigns and promotions.

A quote about how to effectively use content buckets on an Issuu-branded purple background

How to Create Content Buckets

This technique may sound exciting in theory, but actualizing a content bucket strategy can be tricky when you’re first starting out. Here are some helpful strategies:

Understand your audience: The first step towards creating content buckets is understanding your audience on a very deep level. Analytics tools or built-in statistics on social media platforms can help you gain an understanding of the various segments of your audience. Once you have identified the different types of people in your audience, and the different interests these people have, you can dive into creating the content buckets themselves that are tailored to specific groups.
Understand your business: The flip side of the same coin is understanding your business is just as important as understanding your audience. Each content bucket should connect to a specific aspect of your business, and thus it is vital to understand exactly what value your business brings, and the various ways people use your product or service. Once you do this internal research you can work to create a content bucket for each individual use case or service your business offers. This will assure each aspect of your business is getting the most out of your marketing efforts.
Here are some business-related content bucket examples:
1. Product or service information
2. Promotions or Giveaways
3. Educational content
4. Customer highlights or stories
5. Use case inspiration
Global perspective: Creating content buckets that relate directly to your business is a great first step, but many consumers are looking for content that has to do with a certain topic or industry, as opposed to a specific aspect of your business itself. It is a very wise move to create content that connects to the world at large such as:
1. National and global holidays
2. Industry news
3. Tips and tricks
4. Unique perspectives on world events
5. Emerging trends within your industry or related industries
Experimentation: Creating an initial set of content buckets is a great accomplishment, but the work does not stop there. In order to reap the full benefits of a content bucket strategy, you need to continually assess the success of your content strategy and tweak your buckets over time. For example, as your business grows your audience may shift and change, allowing for new content buckets to be added, and others to be discontinued as they become less effective.

How the Issuu team uses content buckets

Here at Issuu we know our publishing community is composed of a wide array of different people with different interests and backgrounds. This is why we make sure to implement a variety of different content buckets. Here are a few examples of the content buckets we use at Issuu:

Customer Stories: Stories and interviews with Issuu customers.
Marketing and Publishing tips and tricks: Insights based on our experience and expertise in the digital marketing realm.
Issuu publisher content: Showcasing the incredible content posted to the Issuu platform every day.
Upcoming Webinars: Informing our customers about upcoming webinars and our Issuu Academy series.
Promotions: Various sales or promotional events we run throughout the year.
Global Events: Upcoming national or global holidays and events.
Content Type Content: brochures, magazines, catalogs, books, educational content, etc.
Customer Industry Content: marketers, designers, small businessnesses, authors, bloggers, etc.

Have Fun With It

Creating content buckets can be a fun and exciting way to diversify your marketing strategy, and for content marketers, it can lead to a whole new way to experiment and let your creativity run wild.

Looking for more inspiration? Follow Issuu on our social channels to take an inside look at our own use of content buckets: